Search - Brahms :: Brahms: Concertos pour piano 1 & 2

Brilliant Brahms

Michael B. Richman | Portland, Maine USA | 02/25/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This 2CD set from EMI's "Rouge Et Noir" series features brilliant performances of Brahms' two Piano Concertos by the great Claudio Arrau. Conductor Carlo Maria Giulini comfortably leads the pianist and the Philharmonia Orchestra, one of the world's greatest ensembles at the time of these recordings made in the early 1960s. Arrau, like Rubinstein and Horowitz, lived a long enough life to record from the old days of mono all the way up through the early days of digital. Personally I find that his playing prowess and recording technology peaked perfectly at the dawn of the stereo age, as they do on these sessions. In fact, the only Brahms PC pair I would choose over Arrau's are the Gilels/Jochum and Serkin/Szell. I do recommend it ahead of EMI's competing Double Forte title featuring Barenboim and Barbirolli, the Fleisher/Szell, any Rubinstein pair, and the recently reissued "Art of Julius Katchen" set (see my review). The cost of this Import is a bit steep compared to some of the above alternatives, but there are other places one can find this title for less (I got mine from HMV Canada prior to their merger with Amazon for one-third this price). Finally it should be mentioned that to round out this two-fer, EMI France has included two additional Giulini/Philharmonia Brahms performances -- the Tragic Overture and Haydn Variations, both made between 1960-62 and first-rate."

Majestic power

Bogdan Iliescu | Houston, TX USA | 10/05/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Brahms piano concertos are, in my opinion, incredibly difficult to turn out right. You need a pianist and a director that can produce powerful, yet sensitive sound that can express the deepest feeling and the most cartesian of ideas. That could sound like an almost impossible task. Except for this recording. Both musicians are capable of great insights into both ideas and feelings, can produce miraculous sounds from their instruments and have an impecable sense of what is right in terms of music.



Arrau plays the piano score with majestic power, with a flawless logic both musical and ideatic and lights the darkest corners of a score that is anything but simple. Giulini comes along sharing the same virtues and helps building a musical partnership of the highest spirituality. Actually, this is where I think they surpass their best competition, i.e. Gilels/Jochum: spirituality. The other set also displays a tremendous sound both in piano and orchestra, a beautiful Brahmsian style, a lot of inner logic and sheer intelligence. Yet Arrau and Giulini are capable of understanding and expressing more from what lies beyond. Not to mention the incredible capability of Arrau to produce symphonic tonalities from his instrument.



All in all, even if not aknowledged as such, I think we stay in front of the greatest of achievements, at least as far as the first piano concerto recordings are concerned and I doubt that you can find better. I searched for 10 years and visited the most spoke about and respected "places", but none is quite like this.



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